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Lunchtime Photo

This iconic tower is part of the Building Formerly Named After Rufus Bernhard von KleinSmid on the USC campus in Los Angeles. KleinSmid, like Caltech's Robert Millikan, was affiliated with the eugenics movement in the 20s and 30s and had to go.

It has been renamed the Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow Center for International and Public Affairs. Medicine Crow received a masters degree in anthropology from USC in 1939.

This picture was taken minutes before the tower went into shadow at sunset while the light was at its ruddiest. The red brick doesn't quite glow, but it comes close.

December 19, 2021 — Los Angeles, California

17 thoughts on “Lunchtime Photo

  1. KawSunflower

    Looking at how the light hits the red brick under the arch, I have no problem with saying it's glowing. Very dramatic.

      1. KenSchulz

        As often, the Germans have a word - Fachidiot, ‘Fach’ can refer to a compartment or ‘pigeonhole’, or to a field of study or academic subject, sometimes translated ‘expert’ in this use; the rest of the word is just what you think.

      2. golack

        Some can be innocuous, e.g., Linus Pauling and mega doses of Vitamin C....
        but even that gave credence to a lot of quackery, not to mention propping up orange juice (no big deal), including the industry's spokesperson, Anita Bryant....yeah...k

        1. J. Frank Parnell

          Linus did get a Nobel prize outside his field of expertise, a peace prize for working on nuclear disarmament, debating Edward Teller among others. He also missed getting a second Chemistry Noble prize; he came out with a structure for DNA before Watson, Crick (and Rosalind Franklin) came out with the famous double helix. One problem, his structure for Deoxyribonucleic acid was not an acid.

  2. J. Frank Parnell

    Personally, I dislike the practice of some Americans who keep the "von" in their name, indicative of some ancient ancestor kissing butt on some obscure or crazy European monarch.

    1. HokieAnnie

      Heh, my ancestors must have done that then but then they high tailed it outta Bavaria when Otto Von Bismark became Chancellor, we think they dropped the Von upon arrival and maybe around WWI Americanized the pronunciation of the surname.

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